Ilenia Pastorelli and Asia Argento in 'Dark Glasses.' 

Charlbi Dean and Harris Dickinson in 'Triangle of Sadness.' 

Charlbi Dean and Harris Dickinson in 'Triangle of Sadness.' 

Early on in Triangle of Sadness, Ruben Östlund’s gleefully icky black comedy, a luxury cruiseline’s head of staff, Paula (Vicki Berlin), summons her on-deck workers for one last group huddle before their soon-to-arrive über-rich clients board. She repeats what they’ve doubtless heard countless times one way or another: that whether a guest asks for an impossible-to-obtain drug or even a unicorn, respond only with an assuring “yes, ma’am” or “yes, sir.” But she also reiterates the importance of making a good impression particularly on the make-it-or-break-it first and last days, not just for the sake of the company’s reputation but also because that’s when clients may feel, wink wink, most generous. 

The first day goes well enough. But by the time we approach the last, it will so profoundly not matter that Paula’s pep talk, with hindsight, will come to feel like the ratification of a curse. In terms of movies where things nosedive south on a big ship, Triangle of Sadness makes the central conflict of The Poseidon Adventure (1972) — that classic disaster movie in which an heir to the Titanic flips stomach-down — seem comparatively easygoing, almost polite. 

Our stand-ins on this ship packed with rotten 1 percenters is Carl and Yaya (Harris Dickinson and the late Charlbi Dean), a young fashion-model couple angling, but struggling, to stake a claim among the elite through their work in an industry where work is as potentially lucrative as it is insecure. High-end cologne ads help fill out Carl’s résumé, but his plummest gigs seemingly dried up about two years ago. Yaya peacocks down top-of-the-line runways but has to supplement her income with Instagram influencing. The couple argue about money at an increasing, and increasingly fraught, rate. Maybe this cruise, for which Yaya has scored free tickets thanks to some sponcon she’d done, will provide a much-needed break from the practical stresses of their lives. 

Their youthful beauty, paired with the recency and precarity of their wealth, makes them automatic fish out of water on this yacht, populated by people rich enough to be totally oblivious to the obnoxiousness of doing things like demanding an on-the-spot cleaning of the ship’s dirty sails (which this motor-powered vessel does not actually have) because of their view-obstruction, or requesting the entirety of the yacht’s crew take a midday break from their duties to enjoy the boat’s inflatable waterslide. This ship, of course, is a beautifully functioning societal microcosm. It’s never used more efficiently than when, mid-film, the passengers attempt to enjoy their absurdly fancy multi-course captain’s dinner right when a violent storm announces itself, slurping oyster juice and slicing grilled octopus while pretending the ship isn’t moving like a see saw sliding off its axis. 

That performative indifference can only go on so long before the cruise becomes a dance-off between extreme seasickness and food poisoning, the floors soon sloshed in expensive upchuck and, when the sewage system inevitably gives up, rivers of diarrhea. Struggling to keep their balance, the perpetrators become pigs squirming in their own slop. It’s a masterfully conceived descent — without a doubt Triangle of Sadness’ centerpiece — where you try to keep down any rising-upward nausea whenever you aren’t laughing. Östlund is well-aware that being confronted with the excesses of the rich is already sickening on its own. Why not take it a step further by challenging us not to literally throw up because of it? He gives us the best eat-the-rich grossout sequence I can think of after the stunningly gooey climax of Brian Yuzna’s underrated horror comedy Society (1989); it’s among the year’s most indelible movie moments. 

Östlund, though, keeps taking steps further when he needn’t: having the ship’s alcoholic, professedly Marxist captain (Woody Harrelson) eventually reading his philosophies over the ship’s intercom while passengers struggle with sickness to explicitly remind us of the immorality of extreme affluence; taking the action, after another darkly funny twist of fate arrives (that also would make for a great ending in itself), to an island, where even starting a society from scratch can be immediately corrupted by power imbalance. 

Östlund is great at micro digs — narrowing in, for instance, on the small humiliation of Carl having to give up a rightfully earned seat at a fashion show to someone better-known; a husband and wife, well-off for life thanks to their work producing hand grenades and landmines, toasting “to love”; a guy removing his newly dead wife’s diamond necklace and ring to sell later after crying a few minutes over her body. But ironically, Östlund is exhaustingly excessive with the macro, nonimmune to didacticism and overplotting when he’s already satisfactorily driven home, and made lots of laugh-out-loud-funny comedy out of, how awful the 1 percent can be. Like the characters he so disdains, it might have been to his benefit to sometimes be told “no.” But I can think of worse things than belaboring the evils of wealth and those corrupted by it.

Ilenia Pastorelli and Asia Argento in 'Dark Glasses.' 

IF IT WEREN'T DIRECTED BY DARIO ARGENTO, the legendary Italian director responsible for some of the best horror movies ever made, nobody would be paying much attention to the unremarkable slasher film Dark Glasses. But because it’s coming in the wake of Argento’s disastrous Dracula adaptation of 2012 — his last feature-length movie — and before that a couple decades’ worth of disappointing-to-flat-out-shameful projects not up to snuff with the masterpieces making up his 1970s and ‘80s, Dark Glasses’ serviceable mediocrity may feel to his fans (myself included) like a cause for celebration.

Riffing on Terence Young’s Wait Until Dark (1967), the plot is simple. Diana (Ilenia Pastorelli), a sex worker with a penchant for bold reds, is being stalked by a serial killer targeting women in her profession. A botched attack one evening leads to a car accident; Diana survives, but wakes up in the hospital blind and is soon caring for the surviving son (Xinyu Zhang) of the family unfortunately in the intersection at the time of the crash. Dissatisfied with that outcome, the killer continues his hunt; armed with a vicious-when-she-needs-to-be service dog and a kid sidekick, Diana continues dodging her would-be predator by the skin of her teeth. 

Long-running Argento trademarks mark the proceedings — an endearingly domineering synth score, a killer who likes wearing black leather gloves when he’s working, regularly clunky dialogue — though his once-potent photographic swagger and ease with generating suspense do not. Dark Glasses is mostly silly, best watched with friends, but is blessedly hardly the embarrassment some of Argento’s more recent movies have been. It might be a stretch to say this 82-year-old’s still got it, but it’s nice to see that he hasn’t completely lost the plot.

Movie Love is South Sound’s weekly film column. For more movie recommendations from Blake Peterson, subscribe to his newsletter.

Blake Peterson is the digital coordinator for South Sound.

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